Welcome, ECRP Reader!

We write to you as one of more than 3 million readers around the world who have visited ECRP this past year to read peer-reviewed scholarship and research on the care, education, and parenting of young children.

For 16 years, Early Childhood Research & Practice has reached an audience of professionals, college and university instructors, policymakers, teachers, and higher education students from more than 100 nations—free of charge and advertising.

We are committed to keeping ECRP an open-access resource. However, our expenses are the same as those of any subscription journal. Editorial time, administrative costs, webmaster’s skills, and especially the cost of translation services add up to about $37,000 a year.

Because we do not sell advertising or take subscriptions, continued free access to ECRP depends on the support and generosity of readers and corporate sponsors. Please show your commitment to early care and education by making a tax-deductible contribution to ECRP today. You may do so in two ways:

ECRP Submissions Suspended
Because we currently have a backlog of submissions and have had to reduce the number of papers published each year, ECRP is not accepting any new submissions until further notice. We will make an announcement through our ECRP newsletter and Facebook page when we begin accepting submissions again.

Write a check (U.S. dollars on a U.S. bank) to UIF / 34099 (ECRP Journal) and send it to:

We are pleased to announce that an anonymous sponsor has pledged to match every dollar donated to ECRP between now and December 31, 2014.

We are grateful for donations of any amount. If every ECRP reader were to give just $1, we could sustain the journal indefinitely!

Please consider making a donation to Early Childhood Research & Practice before Dec. 31, 2014.

This issue of the journal features four papers, including two that are part of our ongoing focus on the landscape of early care and education in our home state of Illinois, USA. Smith reports on teacher and parent perceptions of parent engagement in a Reggio Emilia–inspired Head Start program in Chicago. Findings from her in-depth interviews suggest that even when parents do not fully understand a program’s philosophy, curriculum, or pedagogy, their perceptions of the program may be positive and they may still become engaged in their children’s education. The effectiveness of a leadership development model is the focus of a paper by Talan and colleagues; the findings point to the importance of systematic, intensive training for ECE administrators that is relevant to their particular needs.

Two other papers address ECE matters elsewhere in the United States. Vartuli and colleagues report on a professional development approach that provided teachers with coaching that addressed aspects of the CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System) and teaching with the Project Approach. Sakai and colleagues interviewed nontraditional students pursuing degrees in early childhood in California institutions of higher education. Participants in the study reported that cohort systems and other supports were helpful to their efforts to complete their degree programs.

The editors wish to acknowledge the work of ECRP’s Spanish translator, Theresa Arellano, and its Spanish proofreader, Berkeley Hinrichs.

Early Childhood Research & Practice (ECRP) is the first scholarly, peer-reviewed, bilingual (English-Spanish) open-access electronic journal in the field of early care and education. ECRPis sponsored by the Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The journal publishes research reports, literature reviews, essays, interviews, reflections, and commentary on emerging trends and issues by scholars and practitioners from around the world. Areas of emphasis include classroom practice, curriculum, ethics, teacher preparation, higher education, policy, and parent participation. Beginning with the Spring 2004 issue (Vol. 6, No. 1), ECRP is fully bilingual (English and Spanish). Chinese translations of selected articles are sponsored by the Yew Chung Education Foundation. ECRP is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.